


We don't have any other choice: on Sam in Swan Song

by amonitrate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Meta, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 00:51:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15231765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: Sam sees caging Lucifer as his sole responsibility, exactly the way he saw defeating Lilith as something only he could do. He sees his redemption as only possible via this act of gaining control over Lucifer -- the two become conflated. And this hubris nearly costs the world.





	We don't have any other choice: on Sam in Swan Song

I wanted to further develop some ideas around Sam in Swan Song so here goes. This could be seen as an expansion of some things I touched on in an [earlier, long meta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239544/chapters/18882515).

The end of season 5 is framed as Sam having reflected on season 4 and changed, in order to find his redemption via "cleaning up his mess." While I do think Sam believes what he's doing is the responsible thing given his actions in season 4, I think the fact that he avoided actually looking at the hubris of season 4 beyond "get everyone to agree with my plan this time" ends up sabotaging his good intentions. He had good intentions in season 4, too. The good intentions are what make the hubris so hard for him to see.

To give Sam credit, he did look in part at what he’d done in season 4 and realized hey, maybe if he’d been upfront from the start, he’d have gotten the others to back his play. I think this ignores that the demon blood aspect was never going to fly with Dean, for good reason. I’m not sure Sam sees that part at all clearly and I think this indicates Sam never fully confronted how much the demon blood warped his judgment. He appears to believe the problem stops at the fact that he didn’t get everyone on board with his plan, so that's what he needs to do differently this time. Sam got part of the way into the introspection he needed to do after season 4; the problem is he stopped there.

One of the biggest pieces of evidence I have for my critique of the idea that Swan Song serves as Sam's redemption is in The Devil You Know, where he’s shown coming up with and first proposing the Yes to Lucifer plan. Note that Sam is a) visibly intoxicated (suggesting compromised judgement) because he's b) upset with Dean for agreeing with Crowley to sideline him. This context is very, very interesting to me. One of the other things he hasn’t confronted is his resentment and rage, which Lucifer also exploits, and which is an undercurrent in 5.20.

> SAM: (on the phone, holding a bottle of whiskey) And then Dean just walks...(scoffs)...Right out the door with Crowley.
> 
> BOBBY: Well, look, Sam, I got no love for demons, and, yeah, this whole thing is crazy, but...I don't know. After a year of chasing up zilch, maybe it's time to go crazy.
> 
> SAM: (scoffs) yeah, maybe. (sighs) Hey, Bobby?...Remember that time you were possessed?
> 
> BOBBY: Yeah. Rings a bell.
> 
> SAM: When Meg told you to kill Dean, you didn't. You took your body back.
> 
> BOBBY: Just long enough to shank myself, yeah.
> 
> SAM: Well, how'd you do it? I mean, how'd you take back the wheel?
> 
> BOBBY: Why are you asking, Sam?
> 
> SAM: (takes a swig from his bottle) Say we can open the cage. Great. But then what? W-we just lead the devil to the edge and get him to jump in?
> 
> BOBBY: You got me.
> 
> SAM: What if you guys lead the devil to the edge and I jump in?
> 
> BOBBY: Sam.
> 
> SAM: It'd be just like when you turned the knife around on yourself. One action -- just one leap.
> 
> BOBBY: Are you idjits trying to kill me?!
> 
> SAM: Bobby --
> 
> BOBBY: We just got done talking your brother off the ledge, and now you're lining up to say "yes"?
> 
> SAM: It's not like that. I'm not gonna do it. Not unless we all agree. But I think we got to look at our options.
> 
> BOBBY: This isn't an option, Sam.
> 
> SAM: Why not?
> 
> BOBBY: You can't do it. What I did was a million-to-one, and that was some pissant demon I was brain-wrestling. You're talking about taking back control from Satan himself.
> 
> SAM: Yeah.Yeah, I am.
> 
> BOBBY: Kid...It's called "possession" for a reason. You, of all people, ought to know.
> 
> SAM: I'm strong enough.
> 
> BOBBY: You ain't. He's gonna find every chink in your armor, Sam, and use it against you --Your fear, your grief, your anger. And let's face it -- You're not exactly Mr. Anger management. How are you gonna control the devil when you can't control yourself?

Sam’s original conception of the plan wasn’t at all about how he’s responsible for Lucifer’s release so he should be the one to put him back; instead it’s based on Sam proving himself “strong” -- stronger than Lucifer.

Listen to him when he’s talking to Bobby in that scene. Consider what’s going on in that episode, the way Crowley taunts Sam and then how powerful he feels and the pleasure he takes in killing Brady -- in a direct foreshadowing of the revenge Lucifer will tempt him with in Swan Song -- and tell me at the heart of it this is really about Sam thinking he’s found the smartest plan with the least amount of risk to the world, and not about his personal issues around proving himself.

Because "get everyone to agree with the plan this time" isn't the only issue to be confronted, isn't the core of the problem in season 4. The lying was a symptom of the larger problem. To me, that core was "I need to be the one to do this thing, I'm the only one who can do this thing, so I have to do this thing regardless of warnings or what anyone else says." The Chosen One narrative, in other words. The problem is, getting everyone on board with his plan this time still accepts that he's the Chosen One. Why he believes he needs to fill this role is something he never questions in season 5 (and still hasn’t questioned by season 11, when he believes God is talking to him). And so he fails to establish a way to be accountable for his actions and choices, because he doesn’t see the need. This becomes very important in Swan Song.

Sam says they need to look at all their options but beyond nixing Dean’s Yes to Michael plan, no other options are ever discussed on screen by any of the characters. They don’t call in other hunters for reinforcements, despite the world-ending nature of the problem. Two episodes after he talks to Bobby, it’s no longer about proving himself stronger than Lucifer; he’s rationalizing it to Dean as required of him for his redemption. Sam sees caging Lucifer as his sole responsibility, exactly the way he saw defeating Lilith as something only he could do. But he sees his redemption as only possible via this act of gaining control over Lucifer -- the two become conflated. And this nearly costs the world.

Dean, of course, objects. But in more of the narrative manipulation I detailed in [my longer meta on s5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239544/chapters/18882515), he’s told over and over -- by Bobby, by Death himself -- that he has to “let” Sam do this. Dean’s not allowed to have valid problems with the plan, only fear for Sam: Bobby asks if he’s more afraid of losing Sam than of losing the world, then Dean himself suggests that agreeing to Sam’s plan is tantamount to treating him like an adult, implying his earlier rejection of the plan was solely due to a desire to protect Sam. No one ever addresses Bobby's initial critiques of Sam's plan -- instead, we get a weird manipulative speech from Bobby to Dean:

> BOBBY Look, I'm not saying Sam ain't an ass-full of character defects. But...
> 
> DEAN But what?
> 
> BOBBY Back at Niveus? I watched that kid pull one civilian out after another. Must have saved 10 people. Never stopped. Never slowed down. We're hard on him, Dean. We've always been. But in the meantime... He's been running into burning buildings since he was, what, 12?
> 
> DEAN Pretty much.
> 
> BOBBY Look, Sam's got a...Darkness in him. I'm not saying he don't. But he's got a hell of a lot of good in him, too.

As if the objections were only about Sam's goodness, as if Sam doing the same thing they do every episode (save a few civilians) proves he can control Lucifer. Whether Sam was a saint or a sinner has nothing to do with his ability to break the control of  _an archangel_. As Bobby said, we're not talking a pissant demon here. But the narrative glosses this over in favor of the idea that a) there is no other option (they haven't bothered to come up with an alternative even to reject) and b) preventing Sam from doing this by not consenting to his plan is the same was treating him like a child.

In Swan Song, Sam takes agreement by the others to the Yes to Lucifer plan as a blank check to do whatever *he* wants to do after that moment, regardless of changing circumstances. Because he still sees himself as the Chosen One, he sees that initial agreement as putting him in charge from then on. As the only one who is able to say Yes, he sees himself as the one who gets to choose when and whether to do it, despite the fact that the consequences will impact the entire world, not just him, because *this isn’t about him.* But as I’m explaining, I believe that got lost for Sam.

Sam, high on the power of demon blood, starts off his confrontation with Lucifer via a show of force, killing Lucifer’s goons with his powers, before pretending to negotiate. But Lucifer already knows the plan.

> LUCIFER: Okay, can we please drop the telenovela? I know you have the rings, Sam.
> 
> SAM: I have no idea what you're talking about.
> 
> LUCIFER: The Horsemen's rings? The magic keys to my Cage? Ring a bell? Come on, Sam. I've never lied to you. You could at least pay me the same respect. It's okay. I'm not mad. A wrestling match inside your noggin... I like the idea. Just you and me, one round, no tricks. You win, you jump in the hole. I win... Well, then I win. What do you say, Sam? A fiddle of gold against your soul says I'm better than you.
> 
> SAM: So he knows. Doesn't change anything.
> 
> DEAN: Sam.
> 
> SAM: We don't have any other choice.
> 
> DEAN: No.
> 
> SAM: Yes.

Getting everyone to agree with him that he's the only one who can do this thing and how he’s going to do it isn't getting to the root of the problem in season 4 at all, but replicating it. Thinking that he needs to prove himself "more powerful than" is still there, at heart, in his Lucifer plan, and that remains the fatal flaw.

In fact it’s the core of the plan -- he has to be able to overpower Lucifer, wrest control away from Lucifer. Prove himself stronger than Lucifer. Ultimately, prove himself able to reject Lucifer’s control over him. But he thinks he can only do that by saying Yes and allowing Lucifer’s control of him * _in order to overcome it_.* It’s a messy tangle in Sam’s head.

Every time I watch 99 Problems, I think why does Sam say he’s white-knuckling it? I get why Dean is hanging on by a thread, why *he* thinks saying Yes to Michael is a reasonable plan; but the show never establishes why the hell Sam would struggle to keep saying No to Lucifer. Why he’d say Yes to Lucifer in the Endverse. Why insist to Lucifer he’ll kill himself before saying yes, in Free to Be You and Me, when Lucifer hasn’t resorted to anything like the tactics Zachariah used on Dean, merely told Sam his consent was destiny? What reason could Sam possibly have to say Yes?

I think this idea that he is tempted by the need to say Yes so he can prove he’s stronger than Lucifer, that he’s not Lucifer, to reject Lucifer’s comparison of them as the same, to personally destroy Lucifer because of that suggestion, might be one answer to that question. It’s never quite made explicit in the show, but to me there are enough hints, and it’s consistent with a lot of things about Sam’s character.

One of his core struggles is to prove that he’s not inherently a monster, inherently evil, while internally fearing it’s true. This is another aspect of season 4 that Sam didn’t confront: his sense of himself as tainted. If Lucifer is saying they’re MFEO, they’re the same, then Sam needs to prove they’re not the same, that he’s better than, stronger than, Lucifer. You’d think Sam could do this by flat out rejecting everything Lucifer says and the No would be a foregone conclusion; but at heart Sam fears Lucifer is right about him: isn’t what he did in season 4 evidence? Hence the need to prove something.

And how do you prove you’re stronger than Lucifer? By taking control of your body back from him after you say Yes. It’s the same kind of reasoning that got him into drinking demon blood in order to do good -- why not make use of this taint he feels he can’t get rid of. But he’s never really looked at why he feels tainted and if that’s really true, and how those beliefs drive his actions and rationalizations.

It's why he thinks he should still say Yes even after they find out Lucifer knows the score and they no longer have the element of surprise on their side. It's why he thinks he can disregard the fact that Dean has taken back his consent to the plan in that scene, why he can brush aside Dean’s objection. Because proving himself -- and therefore getting his redemption, as his redemption has become conflated with proving he’s better than Lucifer, not tainted -- has become more important to him than saving the world.

This happens because he never confronted that need to prove himself stronger-than that drove him in season 4. In 5.02, Good God Y’all, he articulated this much, only to fail to look at the problem during his separation from Dean: 

> SAM: From the minute I saw that blood, only thought in my head...and I tell myself it's for the right reasons, my intentions are good, and it, it feels true, you know? But I think, underneath...I just miss the feeling. I know how messed up that sounds, which means I know how messed up I am. Thing is, the problem's not the demon blood, not really. I mean, I, what I did, I can't blame the blood or Ruby or...anything. The problem's me. How far I'll go. There's something in me that...scares the hell out of me, Dean.

Where does this need to prove himself powerful come from? That’s not a question Sam has asked, and it leads to his downfall in Swan Song when he shoves aside all doubts after Lucifer taunts him. He plays right into Lucifer’s hands.

Lucifer even explicitly names the power struggle that Sam has fallen for, hook, line, and sinker: _A wrestling match inside your noggin...Just you and me, one round, no tricks.... A fiddle of gold against your soul says I'm better than you._

And you can't discount that in the scene where Dean tries to take back his consent to the plan, Sam is on demon blood -- a lot of it -- and exhibiting all the power lust that went along with it. Jared plays him hyped up, aggressive, overconfident. If he'd confronted the hubris of season 4 fully, he would have known that this is what the demon blood might do to him, to his judgement.

He could have realized he needed to place his trust in Dean, who isn't altered by demon blood, to have a perspective on the situation that Sam might be unable to reach while full of a substance that tells him he's invincible. To be a check and balance, to be his accountability. That’s what I see in that scene with Lucifer. But Sam hasn’t confronted these things, so Sam doesn’t feel he needs to be accountable to Dean in that scene, and goes ahead with what he wants to do despite Dean’s completely rational objections.

Part of the problem is Sam fixating on “it’s my mess, I have to clean it up” and his definition of what that means. Yes, this was his mess. His actions led to Lucifer’s release. All of that is true, as well as the fact that he has a responsibility to try to repair the damage he’s done. But *how* that is accomplished is where Sam trips up, because of the issues he hasn’t confronted, and so he ends up repeating the same behavior of season 4.

He becomes focused on prioritizing his need for redemption (to prove he’s stronger than, to prove he’s not tainted) and how to accomplish that over what’s actually the soundest plan to save the world from Lucifer and the fact that this plan might need to change should Lucifer get the upper hand. Repairing damage, making amends, all of that has to be done in a way that’s not going to cause further harm. Seeking to repair the damage you’ve done by repeating nearly exactly the same behavior that caused the disaster in the first place, then losing to Lucifer because you’re blinded by your hubris? That’s about as bad as creating further harm can get. Sam actually *made the problem worse.* Apocalyptically.

So he says yes, and Lucifer takes control, and Sam immediately fails to get Lucifer into the trap, and now Lucifer has his true vessel for the big fight. Because playing a control game with Lucifer is a fatal error.

And the entire world would have payed for his mistake, for his hubris, if Dean hadn’t shown up in Stull and thrown a wrench into the works.

All of this explains why Sam is still fixated on getting his redemption -- on purifying himself -- with the Trials in season 8. He doesn’t feel redeemed by Swan Song because deep down he knows * _he wasn’t redeemed.*_ What he went after was false redemption, because it was more about what he needed than what would actually have repaired the harm he’d done; and so Dean had to clean up his mess and save Sam (and the world) from himself at Stull.  Because he never confronted the issues I’ve discussed, he’ll keep repeating these same mistakes until he does, and I think we’ve seen that play out since season 5.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! There has been spirited discussion here, which is super gratifying to a writer to see. 
> 
> However I will not have a lot of time to moderate comments in any consistent way, so if your comment fails to show up, it's not due to malice but because I'm not online to approve it.
> 
> also: 
> 
> A) I'd rather we stay away from naming each other "character-haters" in this discussion. Make your points on the merits without either accusing or insinuating that the points are being made out of "hate" in order to discredit your opponent. Disagreement and differing interpretations are not character hate.
> 
> Repeated uses of this tactic will result in comments being deleted.
> 
> B) I'm requesting belatedly that comments stick primarily to the events of seasons 4-5. Let's not get too distracted or derailed into the events of seasons 10 years later, etc.


End file.
